I am an IT professional, and occasionally that includes some help desk work. I find that it makes me worse at trying to help friends and family with their IT problems. I increasingly lack the patience to try to talk people through any IT calamity...with help desk, every time I get a call, I wind up remoting into their system. Trying to explain things to people over the phone is extremely taxing for me :)

I would say so! I have a neighbor, the kindest lady you would EVER meet, she's maybe in her mid to late 50s I could be completely wrong but let's proceed, she didn't know how to work a smart phone completely (like remove apps, setup her email address for the mail app, and just relative stuff) she also didn't know how to use some of modern day technology, so anytime she needs help, i'll kindly assist her ANYTIME, she doesn't use the phone that often as she works at home, I can't remember what she does exactly but she works from her own house. Probably making a lot of money as she has a really nice house and car! She does catch on pretty quick, but I would stop what I'm doing to give her a helping hand. Plus I've known her for 6 years.

No. I hate it. I refuse to be the PC fix-it guy for anyone but my wife. I do enjoy being the IT teacher though.

I won't give anybody a salmon, but I will teach anyone who is interested how to fish. That's also how I approach IT problems. It's also how I justify not helping most people though... few want to put in the effort to learn why something doesn't work and how to troubleshoot systematically based on a sound understanding of computing technology. They just want their problem fixed. I don't consider that worth my time.